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SEA ISLE CITY NEW JERSEY - SEA ISLE CITY Homes and Real Estate For Sale - Realtor®

How to Have a Successful Garage Yard Sale

How to Have a Successful Garage or Yard Sale

Are you feeling overwhelmed with all of the 'treasures' you have piled up in the attic, basement, garage and spare room? A great way to motivate yourself to get organized and get rid of things is to have a garage or yard sale! The best part about it is that you can actually make lots of money doing it! Here are a bunch of really helpful tips that I have learned from both experience and from other people. Good luck and have fun!!

Give Yourself Plenty of Time to Prepare:

Plan a date at least three weeks ahead. This will give you enough time to plan, organize, and get your act together.

Be sure to find out if your town requires you to have a permit.

Weekends are the best times to have garage sales, and believe it or not Fridays are also very good days. Be sure to steer clear of dates that conflict with holidays or special events.

Consider holding a multi-family sale with friends, neighbors or relatives to attract more people. It will also be less expensive to split the costs of advertising in the newspaper.

The next step is to get your items together and make sure they are clean and figure out what their working conditions are.

Pricing Your Items

Visit other garage/yard/tag sales to get an idea for pricing. Be realistic when pricing your items. Remember, this is a Garage Sale not a retail store. Don't be set in stone with your prices and be prepared to be flexible. Most people will bargain, so don't get offended.

Price each item with self-stick tags, labels or pieces of masking tape .

For joint sales, mark price tags with seller's initials or use different colored labels to make it easier to see what belongs to who. You can also keep a list of each person's items that have sold.

Advertising

Advertise in your local newspaper and plan to have it start running in the day before your sale starts and on the actual day itself.

Some newspapers offer free yard/garage sale kits which include signs and pricing stickers, make sure you ask for one!

Hang flyers on bulletin boards in grocery stores or laundry mats.

Make large, bright or colorful, eye catching signs that tell the date, time, and address of the sale. It is also helpful to put arrows on them for people who do not know the area well. Use permanent markers in case of rain. Place the signs at intersections and corners. (Check local ordinances regarding sign postings first) and hang them the night before your sale.

Setting Up

Borrow a lot of tables.

Try to setup your Garage Sale the night before.

Try to organize your items. Keep items together by their type (I.e. kitchen, clothing, books, videos,

Leave enough room in between tables so that there is room for people to walk around and that all items are accessible.

Put up a clothesline and hang clothing there. You should also try to separate it by gender and sizes if you have time.

If you have big items, such as furniture, hang signs to advertise them. That way you don't have to lug them outside and will decrease the risk of them getting damaged.

Sale Day

Have plenty of change available! You will need singles and fives and approximately $5.00 in quarters, dimes and nickels.

Get up early to finish setting up. This is hard to do because people will come to your Garage Sale as soon as you start pulling stuff out, even if this is an hour earlier than you advertised.

You should keep your money on you, either in a fanny pack or pocketbook, at all times.

Be sure to have someone there to help you. You will be surprised how many people come to your sale! Also, as horrible as it is, there are people who will steal from you, and the more eyes and hands you have to help, the better.

Make sure you have newspaper to wrap any fragile items you might be selling.

Also make sure you have plenty of grocery bags to put your customers purchases in.

If needed, have a calculator as well.

If you have a break between customers, it is a good idea to straighten up and reorganize your items.

Involve your children! Have them go through their toys and let them keep the money they make! Also let them set up a lemonade stand or sell cookies.